‘But I have two aims here. First, to give this boy a bright future and a good education. And second, to save their other children. The winter’s coming and I’ve given them money so the children don’t die of hunger.’

Mr Mohammed says: ‘I sold a piece of my heart to stop my four other children dying of hunger. I don’t have an elder son. I’m also sick.

‘My kidney is failing. My body is in pain.’

For him, selling a child is the only way to keep his other children alive.

Not only are parents being forced to sell their sons but the number children being kidnapped has soared.

There were at least 180 documented abductions in Kabul alone in the past seven months.

Air strikes and nighttime raids in Afghanistan are stoking anger in the local population and threatening to turn Afghans against coalition forces, according to a new report by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

4 thoughts on “Hungry Afghan parents sell sons”

The auditorium of the Charlotte Street Arts Centre was filled recently with people coming together to support a longtime prominent women’s group in Afghanistan, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).

It was established in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1977. It struggles for women’s rights and runs schools, literacy programs, health clinics, orphanages and refugee programs.

The association’s Benefit Variety Show is an annual event organized by the Fredericton Peace Coalition and the University Women’s Centre with support from international development agency CUSO-VSO.

This year the NB Rebelles, a new feminist organization, joined organizing efforts. The event was full of local talent and analysis of the situation of women in Afghanistan, the Congo and New Brunswick, and native women in Canada.

Dana Ghanem, a Palestinian child living in Fredericton, touched hearts by reading a poem of hope for Palestine called The Seed Keeper.

The event also featured gumbooting, a resistance dance founded in South African mines.

The event closed with dancing to the reggae tunes of Sierra Leone’s Saa Andrew.

The third annual benefit raised $1,900. Donations can be made to the association until the end of April via the Fredericton Peace Coalition by e-mailing info@frederictonpeace.org.

For more information about the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, visit http://www.rawa.org.